Thursday, January 29, 2015

Tonight I'd like to post my recent interview with Charles Clifford Brooks III, poet, educator, and founder of the Southern Collective Experience. It is amazing how much he does! More importantly, I think you will want to learn more about him, and after reading this interview, you will continue to be intrigued.

Credit -- Mary Judkins and Holly Holt

Design by Ezra Letra

-- Who is Cowboy Blue Crawford,
and what led you to write an epic about him?

Cowboy
Blue Crawford is me.

I didn’t
plan to write another epic poem as I began to wrap up Athena Departs. The name “Blue” came from the Ephemera and
doesn’t symbolize anything in itself.
“Crawford” is one of my father’s family names, and the town (Crawford,
Georgia) in which I grew up. The idea
that he’s a cowboy originated from the seed that Doc Holliday is among my
trinity of lifelong heroes (i.e. Dante, Beethoven, and Holliday).

The work
is autobiographical. I am a different
man than that hurt boy from The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics.
The Salvation of Cowboy Blue Crawford leaks out of the fissures left behind in
my flesh from battles won in my personal and professional life. It’s no sad song, or overwrought “I am
tough” façade so many males in the arts feel must be fronted. I am me.
I am Cowboy Blue Crawford.

Photo credit -- Matthew Polsfuss

-- Why did you choose the epic
form?

The
absolute focus it takes to write an epic is the primary reason I’m drawn to it
as an art form. The longer a poem is,
the tighter you must stitch the language.
My nemesis is boredom. The
attention needed to craft an epic removes all chances of me falling into a
malaise of inactivity and incessant, itchy moods. The Salvation of Cowboy Blue Crawford has also made me take an
honest stock of who I am now - whether it’s pretty or not. I think one of the reasons my poetry has
struck a sticking point is due to the fact I am the same man on paper that I am
in person. I do not brag or make undo
apologies.

Interior
rhyme, I’ve found, is one of the keys to keeping a reader moving forward. I began in this business as a writer of
prose. The epic allows me to marry
poetry and the prosaic length of a good story.
All writers must love, and be good at, spinning a good story. That’s what poetry and prose is all
about. Plus, I feel society is
underestimated in its ability to digest and appreciate the epic.

Although
poetry is often a solitary undertaking, I don’t walk this road alone. Brother Felino A. Soriano and Brother Joe
Milford are also a part of this project and add epics of their own. This is the first collaboration I’ve ever
attempted, and it’s been effortless.
The title of this collaboration has yet to be decided. The Salvation of Cowboy Blue Crawford is
only a piece of the whole. There’s even
a unique addition of a prose piece that ties all three of our characters
together. If you do the right work with
the right people for the right reasons, miracles happen every day. Fact.

Painting by Ka-Son Reeves inspired by Cowboy Blue Crawford
This will be the cover of the epic once it is published.

-- What surprised you the most
about writing an epic? Why?

What
surprised me most is how much fun it is to write an epic. It demands a sharp lexicon, including one’s
genuine drawl, awareness of one’s roots, truth of self, and a challenge that
will show the poet's true strength.

Yet, the
revisions and follow-through of the epic can be brutal to one with an OCD hold
on perfectionism. I have become better
about that since my first book, but to be honest, completely honest, it can
feel like a “broken hallelujah” (thank you, Jeff Buckley).

So, to
muscle through that barrage of reflection, I threw on music. The blues, old
school country, gospel and bluegrass coaxed me beyond many writer’s
blocks. It became the soundtrack for
the whole work.

-- What led you to start the
Southern Collective Experience?

The idea
came to me a decade ago. Brother Joe
Milford was on the phone with me as I started to throw around the idea of
dispelling the cliché that artists can’t be friendly, if not family, while also
being practical business folk. Art does
make money. I don’t work for free. For life, love, or rent – everything I do
today is because I adore it, and because it allows me to financially breathe
deep.

More
recently, someone told me that I can’t control the number of jackasses in my
life. That isn’t true. The Experience began to come into immediate
focus as also an oasis of intelligence, often-rough humor, with both hands
buried deep in the Cemetery of Expression.
We are a company. We are all
published legit. Our reputations speak
for themselves. No soapbox. No haughty mission statement. No promise to return art to some utopian
state. We will make it better now,
tomorrow, and tomorrow.

The SCE
is a group of photographers, visual artists, prose writers, graphic designers,
poets, and musicians. We share a
similar, smart, gritty song in our hearts and refuse to shoot anywhere but
straight.

When
someone gets huffy with me about entrance into the group by asking if I’m an
elitist, the answer is – yes. If that’s what people call someone who doesn’t compromise, I’ll
stand by it.

Photograph of the SCE by Sandra Smith

-- I'm sure that you get this
question all the time, but what does it mean to you to be Southern? Where/how do you draw the boundary? (I've
known people who consider Indiana to be Southern; I also knew one man who
informed me that Virginia was NOT Southern.)

Being
Southern isn’t just about place. Yet,
being from below the Mason-Dixon certainly helps. Being Southern-minded is a classical education that exemplifies
the virtue of using language to settle unrest, but common sense (and ability)
to put the bad man down. Violence isn’t
always the answer, but sometimes it is.
To be Southern is to give both God and the Devil their respect and
space.

We have a
melody between us that’s simple in its genius.
In my opinion, the South is the only part of America that isn’t afraid
of claiming a culture. This culture
isn’t sexist or racist or riddled with Civil War Guilt. We come from all walks of life, both sexes,
many religions, but united in the pursuit of genuine expression, intolerance
for politically correct pressure, while wearing a real smile and strong
resolve.

There is
music in every crevice of the South. A
great deal of music in our family goes back and forth as we pull tighter
together. I’ve come to believe if
someone has a deep-seeded love of some true form of music, there’s something
redeemable in their soul. We sing to
the world through the tones in our work and, as time goes on, all of us experience
the peace in harmony.

-- How do you see the Southern
Collective Experience evolving?

This year
(in April 2015) we launch our magazine, The Copperhead Literary & Arts
Review. We also make our website (www.southerncollectiveexperience.com) more visible this year, which
includes Copperhead and our radio show, Dante’s Old South from WYYZ 1490AM, The
Croc. The radio show starts back up in
the late spring or early summer of this year with Brother Matt Youngblood. It will scream over the airwaves as well as
streaming online coast-to-coast.

The
newest evolution of the team is the Apprentice Class, which takes men and women
with enormous talent and gives them access to those in the same field who are
making a success of their greatest passion.
This in no way makes it easier for the Apprentice Class, only enlightens
and exposes those who need (and deserve) it most to the real world wisdom not
taught in college. (I think the last
course any art-based degree should include is: How the World Really Works
101. I am more than happy to develop
this curriculum.)

All of us
continue to grow on our own. A
brilliant point in our social contract is that none of us lose our
independence. None of us are swallowed
by the demands of a group mentality. We
fine tune this group every day. There
are projects coming out this year that will leave us all spellbound. It’s the grace of being happy for other’s
happiness and the desire to help them reach their “laughing place” (one of Brer
Rabbit’s cunning terms of escape from Brer Fox and Brer Bear).

We are
creating a fresh merchandising line for the SCE, and by this summer we hope to
have a location for our own open mic night.
The big difference in our open mic is the discussion and constructive
criticism of the work presented. If you
can’t take honest input delivered in a gentle fashion, don’t get into this
occupation. Yet, there’s a way to offer
criticism without being an asshole. I
am doing an interview soon more on the SCE’s recreation of the open mic/poetry
reading. The trick is to make it a
festival with musicians, visual artists, dance, prose, and poetry. Remove outdated limitations and you reinvent
the universe of performing arts. Yes,
reading poetry is just that – a performance.

Athena
Departs exhibits a braver use of the way(s) in which I speak and think. As with The Salvation of Cowboy Blue
Crawford, Athena Departs doesn’t limp with the weight of lost love or befuddled
by depression. Athena picks up where my
first book left off. The stories mature
and simply tell the facts behind my becoming.

-- What surprised you the most
about writing your second book? Why?

What I
found the most surprising was the lack of anxiety involved with the creation
of, and editing, my poetry. The lessons
I learned the first go-around stuck and it has saved me the self-imposed,
accidental exile necessary to carve out The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling
Metaphysics. My teaching job and the
SCE have helped me keep my crazy train firmly on the rails. I am responsible to those in this
family. That includes striving to do my
best while avoiding the clichés of boozing or using narcotics to fuel my
inspiration. One of the only maxims of
our team is, “Don’t embarrass the family.”

Teaching
forces me to focus on others and get out of my head for a considerable portion
of the week. I have found this to be
beneficial to my overall chill when my obsession to express myself exactly
right just might drive me right up a tree I won’t climb down from if left too
long alone. Teaching tunes me into the
lives of fascinating people and allows me to flex another skill set outside
creative internal monologue.

-- What advice would you give
writers (and other artists) who want to use social media?

Use it
genuinely. Don’t puke up every detail
of your life. Think hard about what you
want the public to know in the event that success slips under your front door. Privacy is priceless. If you see writing (or the arts) as a
real-world career, these are things you must consider and respect along with
the excitement.

-- If you had to live anywhere in
the South, other than Georgia, where would you live? If you had to live anywhere in the US, other than the South,
where would you live? Why?

If I had
to move out of Georgia, but stay in the South, I would go to New Orleans. Anyone who has been there, and left a bit of
themselves in that town, knows why. If
I had to live outside the South, I would hit either Washington State or
Colorado. I like the mountains and
breathing room between folks up there.

Above is the cover of Clifford's first book.

The cover of Clifford's second book is by Ezra Letra.

The
Salvation of Cowboy Blue Crawford

Preface

And
I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and
Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of
the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the
beasts of the earth.

CliffordBrooks is a teacher, freelance writer, and poet living in North Georgia. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and Georgia Author of the Year for his first book of verse, The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics. Clifford’s next book of poetry, Athena Departs, is currently in the last stages of editing. His newest accomplishment, with the help of many brilliant artists, is the creation of The Southern Collective Experience, who will soon have a website of their own. His online presence includes Twitter; Instagram; Facebook; and his personal website Cliff Brooks. Artistic snippets of his work (as created by Holly Holt, a member of The Collective) can be found on Pinterest here: Athena Departs; and The Salvation of Cowboy Blue Crawford.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

From time to time, I may publish reviews of poets' chapbooks. Here is the first!

Contumacy
by Paul Hawkins published by Erbacce Press

Put
Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Dickens, Keith Richards, John Mayall, and Sir Francis
Drake into a blender, make a smoothie called the Golden Hind and put on your
hat for an adventure. Gandhi, Thoreau, and Mandela refused to knuckle under or
bend and so does Mr. Paul Hawkins in Contumacy. Poems float down like sweet
snowflakes while bricks amass in walls. Paul boogies to the dry-fly while Troy
scalds his balls. A nine stone William S. Burroughs break dances in a bed of
dead batteries and bullet rain. Sounds, thoughts, images, and secret Oulipo
dust are all sprinkled through this master opus of words. Edgar A. Poe and Dylan
Thomas arm wrestle. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin play Scrabble. I thought of
when Cheech and Chong got pulled over by the cops. The cop says, “Your eyes are
red, have you been smoking dope?” Cheech replies, “Your eyes are glazed, have
you been eating doughnuts?” Catch Contumacy from Erbacce Press and Pawl
Hawkins, a great English writer, before he turns into Houdini and blows your
socks off while your shoes are still on.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Catfish McDaris' entries in the Michael Brown contest are "100% true" and set in Milwaukee, just like the picture above.

Sweet Jesus

The symphony
leader was a master violinist. He borrowed a three hundred year old
Stradivarius violin valued at six million dollars for a concert at a church.
After the concert he departed the building by a darkened parking lot with no
security and headed for his car. Two men with taser guns zapped him and made
off with the valuable instrument. The entire police force was on high alert and
finally captured the two robbers. The violin remained missing. At the same time
a five day old African-American baby girl was kidnapped. News reports on all
television and radio channels gave more importance to the violin than the
missing infant. The violin was carried first on the news and given more time
for updates. The homicide and vice department of the police were assigned to
find the violin. Finally the baby was found in the next state in a duffel bag
at a gas station in the middle of winter. The baby had been outside for twelve
hours, but miraculously was fine. The violin was found two weeks later in an
attic with no damage, the rich owners never came forward and revealed their
identity. All of Milwaukee paid the overtime for the police force. I’m just
glad my prayers were answered.

Catfish McDaris’ most infamous chapbook is Prying with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski. His best readings were in Paris at the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore and with Jimmy"the ghost of Hendrix"Spencer in NYC on 42nd St. He’s done over 25 chaps in the last 25 years. He’s been in the New York Quarterly, Slipstream, Pearl, Main St. Rag, Café Review, Chiron Review, Zen Tattoo, Wormwood Review, Great Weather For Media, Silver Birch Press, and Graffiti and been nominated for 15 Pushcarts, Best of Net in 2010, 2013, and 2014, he won the Uprising Award in 1999, and won the Flash Fiction Contest judged by the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2009. Catfish McDaris has been published widely. In The Louisiana Review, George Mason Univ.Press, and New Coin from Rhodes Univ. in South Africa. He’s recently been translated into French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Bengali, Tagalog, and Esperanto. His 25 years of published material is in the Special Archives Collection at Marquette Univ. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I'm going to post images of some of Catfish's chapbooks, starting with Prying.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Tonight poet Catfish McDaris returns us to the Monk contest--with a little help from Ed Schelb's photocollage above. Enjoy!

Elephant Tusk Boogie

Fingers chasing each other, notes

pouring forth like champagne

Horns blowing elephant love

feet tapping snapping bo bapping

Bass booming vibrating magic rhythm

crooning words of desire desperation

Monk said his mama looked like a

gorilla and he could never find

Her nipples for all the damn hair

at least he could bend a note on

His piano like a blacksmith making

horseshoes and all the girls smiled.

Six Headed Dog

They stayed together way too long

like a rusty worn out El Camino,

they should’ve read the writing on

the wall and said it was all over

When she used a chainsaw on Monk’s

piano that he’d written Round Midnight

and Blue Monk and fed him dog food

for meatloaf, that was the final straw

Theolonius caught a boat sailing for Cuba,

where the mojitos were strong and cold

and the tobacco sweet, and the women

were vanilla and fantastically beautiful.

Catfish McDaris’ most infamous chapbook is Prying with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski. His best readings were in Paris at the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore and with Jimmy"the ghost of Hendrix"Spencer in NYC on 42nd St. He’s done over 25 chaps in the last 25 years. He’s been in the New York Quarterly, Slipstream, Pearl, Main St. Rag, Café Review, Chiron Review, Zen Tattoo, Wormwood Review, Great Weather For Media, Silver Birch Press, and Graffiti and been nominated for 15 Pushcarts, Best of Net in 2010, 2013, and 2014, he won the Uprising Award in 1999, and won the Flash Fiction Contest judged by the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2009. Catfish McDaris has been published widely. In The Louisiana Review, George Mason Univ.Press, and New Coin from Rhodes Univ. in South Africa. He’s recently been translated into French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Bengali, Tagalog, and Esperanto. His 25 years of published material is in the Special Archives Collection at Marquette Univ. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Another poet I've met through Facebook is the Nigerian-American Abdul Kabir Abu Irfan (or, since the beginning of 2015, Prince Adewale Oreshade). This evening I'd like to post some of his poems for you to enjoy. As you can see, a number of his poems are addressed to friends.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Today I'd like to focus on poems in a mother's voice. These are for the Michael Brown contest. The first poem is by my former student, Amber Smithers, a young woman who may become a filmmaker. (She has so many interests, and I'm glad that she decided to participate in this contest!)A Lullaby to My Son

Hush little baby,

Don't you cry.

Mommy's not gonna let you die.

Don't let those demons

Take your light.

I'm sorry I wasn't there that night.

But now mommy's gonna win this fight.

Mommy's gonna love you through the night.

Hush little baby,

Don't you cry.

Mommy's gonna make sure you survive.

-- Amber Smithers

I am not sure that Joan McNerney's poem is also a mother's voice, but it speaks to the pain that a mother faces when she loses a son to violence. As women who are not mothers, neither Joan nor I can imagine what it is like to lose a child in this way.

For the Mothers

Don’t

Don’t think

think about it

that he is dead

you won’t see him again

you are alone but

you still look for him

the call came

his young body gone

all the love in the world won’t bring him home

you still look for him

you are alone but

you won’t see him again

that he is dead

think about it

Don’t think

Don’t

-- Joan McNerney

Below is a picture of Emmett Till with his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who outlived her only child by forty-eight years.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Recently I met the Nigerian poet Adelaja Ridwan Olayiwola on Facebook, and tonight I'd like to share some of his poems with you. (He shares his poems freely on Facebook, so if you would like to read more of his work, you may go to his timeline to see what he is working on. Many of his poems comment on Nigerian politics, so reading them may be a good way to learn more about this country.)

The picture above is of the harmattan, the dry season's wind. Adelaja's second poem is inspired by it.

I SING

I sing the song of a land

where everyman is a patriot

and every station is a peacestead.

II

I sing of tomorrow

snail-slow like lullabies

soothing the pains of my people

petting the troubled children to rest.

III

I sing of change

like poets of all ages

calling from the

minarets of their pen

preaching peace from the pulpit

of sorrow-scattered sheets.

IV

I sing of hope

like a chorister

rehealsing the songs of a new beginning

humming without beats along the street.

V

I sing of a land

and I sing of tomorrow

I sing of change

and I sing of hope.

VI

I sing,

... yes, I will sing

...until diaries date my death.

My Harmattan Song

The cold

and chill is here again

The skin

is drying quick again.

Gloss on

lips I see again

Socks and

gloves on men again.

Lotions

–no effect again

Sweaters

come in vogue again.

Leaves litter

the yard again

Students

pick and pick again.

A.C is free

for all again

The rich won't

boast to us again.

The haze is here,

it is harmattan again

Let's play safe

perhaps, to witness another one again!THE COIN OF LIFESweet and sourHard and softOn and offTender and toughHead and tailPass and failShort and longWeak and strongLife tosses on like a tiny coinLike a stream –in twos, all around it runsIt comes and goes like the daily sunIt smiles –it cheers, it also mourns.Island and lakeBreak and makeUp and downSmile and frownLeft and rightDull and brightFront and backLight and darkLife tosses on like a tiny coinLike a stream –in twos, all around it runsIt comes and goes like the daily sunIt smiles –it cheers, it also mourns.Come and goHigh and lowGive and takeReal and fakeFast and sluggishKind and fiendishNut and boltSink and floatLife tosses on like a tiny coinLike a stream –in twos, all around it runsIt comes and goes like the daily sunIt smiles –it cheers, it also mourns.Sleep and wakeStill and shakeSun and moonAgo and soonNasty and holyMany and onlyHome and awayWill and mayLife tosses on like a tiny coinLike a stream –in twos, all around it runsIt comes and goes like the daily sunIt smiles –it cheers, it also mourns.Love and hatredRich and wretchedPoem and proseFriends and foesStretching and bendingRising and fallingGrave and cradleBusy and idleAnd on and onLife tosses on!

---------

For your musical accompaniment, let's start with Stan Getz and Chet Baker's live performance of Sonny Rollins' "Airegin" from 1983: